So the team is starting work on the next major expansion pack. But we also want to keep an eye on the base game.

Right now, the recent Steam reviews for GalCiv are pretty awful with most of the people reviewing it doing so because they don't like some of the changes in v2.5. So if there are changes you would like in 2.7 and beyond, this would be the place to ask.

The Steam review system is something I have and will continue to complain about because frankly, it absolutely destroys games. When it's less than 70, a game might as well not exist. So I'll be explicit, if you want us to keep working on GalCiv III, please leave a Steam review. If not, don't. If you already have, thank you!

As many of you know, I am AI biased. But I know I'm in a minority because there is another space strategy game outselling GalCiv III and, suffice to say, AI is not its focus.

It is clear that narratives in games matter. GalCiv has a quest system ala Fallen Enchantress/Sorcerer King. But we have tried to avoid doing that because we don't want the game to be a series of scripted narratives. We don't plan to change that position in the base game but we are looking at releasing DLC that will do that if players want it.

Now, the next major expansion pack focuses on politics and government. So we'll set all that aside for now. Otherwise, it's all open. What would you like to see?

One thing that probably would have helped things out would have been to wait until after a sale to come out with a major patch.

I miss administrators from the base their seems to me not to be enough.

I definately don't like the food system it was better in the base. I'm talking about organics. Global is not the problem, but without a percent per turn. But a flat food I just can't seem to play carbon. Go Slynn.

unknown ship style is getting annoying. I think this is caused from not all the parts going into Crusade.

Now lets talk about hubs I liked what they did to those the best in base. Where the hubs were different with different factions.

Now the techs were the best in two in the way that each race had a different tech tree. Now I understand this is dictated by race types, and personality traits, but now it seems that there is not much differentiation.

I'm also missing taxation controlling approval.

Now this I can see as a problem.

Now I have some ideas.

Still like the idea of multiple factions combining to research the same thing. There could even be new techs offered this way.

I would like to see where we find precursor techs that you can't get any other way instead of finishing my research.

Would also like to see some endgame discoveries.

Now mercenaries and some of the colinization stuff could be changed where when they level up a lot of levels they increase in abilities, so this way they are not to strong to early.

Finding half the factions on the map doesn't seem to work for the galactic council on a ludicrous map, so the idea of what I thought was the rule would work better for me where the council meets 1 rear after you meet your first civilization would be better at least for ludicrous maps.

I think this would be better if after 400 turns into the game that everything random resets with new random stuff.

I would say, keep an eye on and polish the base game, but save major changes for the expansion. To follow on that, the reviews suck, but this isn't the first time this has happened and can bounce back if you guys keep up the great dialogue with the community. I'm a regular GalCiv player, but also a regular Stellaris player. The devs over the lifetime of that game have copped plenty of flak for changes made, or a direction taken. The game director, Martin Anward, has had plenty of 'robust' exchanges on the forums. It got a lot negative attention for its initial 1.6 update, and even now after a decent drop of new content and a big patch, its recent review score has been dropping. And the guys over at Amplitude have had similar problems with their reviews too.

Also, the thing about the story elements of Stellaris is that they spent a significant amount of time developing the game around that idea. It sits in this, at times, awkward space between a 4X and one of their other grand strat games they develop and publish. GalCiv 3 seems to have been made with a new engine and sandbox in mind.

For galciv, outside of the things in the next expansion, I would like to see some more balancing and AI improvement, more mega events and super weapons.

PS. Oh, and I think the update and sale were not well timed. Newbies seeing established players vent is not going to help you sell the game!

Edit*

PPS. I think you could add a challenging set of late game events for competent to master players as a DLC. Another, simpler thing may be to have AI behavior where the they gang up on a snowballing player (perhaps as an optional condition, like surrenders)? Maybe that is an idea tied to the next expansion, so not sure.

Let's say you have 3 research labs, those give you 5% and 5% from adjacency each, total of 30%. If you have 20 flat research on your planet that is 6 points of research. Let's say you have 3 basic factories: 5% all construction +2% from adjacency for each factory, totals at +21%, let's say again you have 20 flat production in both, that is 8.2 points of construction. Factories also have 3 wealth maintenance, laboratories have none.

Let's say the factory/research planet has 100% approval and the city planet has 40% approval, so labs and factories are multiplied with 1.25 relative to farms from the production bonus, so we are at 7.5 and 10.25 points vs. 12 points not considering wealth and 7.5/7.25 vs 13 considering wealth.

You could argue I have to consider hub buildings, but these benefit from city adjacency aswell, so no, not an advantage of factories/labs.

So now, your turn:

How are farms and cities not better? I am really curious how you reckon that.

edit: got the number on city population wrong, with 2 adjacency it is 4 not 5. adjusted above post with the correct number. The conclusion remains unchanged though.

1) slow colonization. One of the ways this could also be done (that hasn't been mentioned) might be the use of a "claim" or "outpost" system where a planet can be "claimed" before it's colonized for less resources - but maybe others can also "claim" it too and these claims would need to get resolved prior to colonization (if there's more than one claim per planet). This would allow for races to slow down their neighbors by throwing claims out without actually partaking in a colony rush themselves. Also, planets could come with existing claims from minor races, primitive tribes or whatever that may need to be resolved in a specific way (ie this may also be a way to generate ideology without actually doing a colony rush).

2) ideology is mentioned as needing a pass. I definitely agree. It hasn't kept up with the rest of the game evolution.

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reserving this space for an edit - I'll try later this AM. Great thread. Thanks for the work Frog.

Also i would like the ideology system fixed, like where instead of having 3 different catagories of points. Just having 1 that is the average number of all three choices, with a seperate section where the points to spend would just be added together. Instead of benevolent, and malevolent, which sounds like good vs. Evil lets actually have ideologies.

Jagged Knife/Peace Keepers are only super annoying because of how they happen.

If they A. Created a new major race that could be interacted with B. Did not happen in the first 100 turns C. Attacked the AI races with the same fervor as they attack the Player...

I think they would be a lot more fun.

As it is the Peacekeepers are especially annoying as I've watched them pass right by the AI ships that are attacking me, blow up all my stuff.. and then go to my next planet. So the the AI just swoops in and takes my now undefended Planet. like yay now I'm fighting a two front war.. that's awesome...